Proposed meals, hotel tax could generate $200G for Swampscott

SWAMPSCOTT – A municipal relief package in the governor’s budget could generate almost $200,000 in additional revenue for the town.Town Administrator Andrew Maylor said the proposal would allow municipalities the option of imposing a 2 percent hotels and meals tax, which could generate $182,000 for the town.”For a small place like Swampscott that is not an insignificant amount,” he said. “But this is not a done deal. It could be several weeks before we know if this is going to happen.”Maylor said according to numbers provided to him by the state, a 2 percent local options meal tax could generate $153,000 annually for the community and a hotel tax could generate an additional $29,000.”My understanding is 1.25 percent of the tax would go directly to the community where it is generated,” he said. “The other .75 percent would would go to the state and it would be distributed to participating communities based on a state formula similar to lottery aid.”Maylor said it would be premature to include any potential revenue from the proposed meals/hotel tax in his budget.”I don’t assume new sources of revenue that may not materialize,” he said. “This has not been adopted by the state yet and if it does pass the selectmen would have to take action on it.”It’s tough trying to keep tabs on the budget for the upcoming fiscal year when the numbers from the state are still in flux. Town Administrator Andrew Maylor said state aid numbers for FY’10 are changing almost daily depending on what version of the budget you look at.Maylor said when he prepared the budget for FY’10, which was adopted by Town Meeting, he was very conservative with the amount of state aid he predicted.He said he used the original House budget because it did not assume towns would receive additional money from sales tax.”We did not use the larger figure,” he said. “I felt that number was too aggressive and funds might not materialize. I used a much more conservative figure and I understated revenue from what the House adopted by $320,000.” Maylor said he used a conservative figure when he prepared the $54 million budget because he was sure the Senate budget would include less local aid than the House budget, which it did.”The most recent budget proposed by the Senate is approximately $440,000 less than what the House was recommending,” he said. “What the Senate proposed in its most stark budget puts us $120,000 out of balance. We are looking at a possible shortfall of $120,000 that’s why the meals/hotel tax could be huge for us.”